European Team Chess Championship starts in Halkidiki

11/4/2011 – This nine-round Swiss, which will run from November 4-12, has a total of 38 countries in the open and 28 in the women's section. In round one on Thursday the top seed Russia squeaked out a win over Moldova, ranking 20th, while the Russian women – actually the Kosintseva sisters – demolished the Israelis 3-1. We bring you a richly illustrated round one report.

3rd – 11th November in Halkidiki, Greece

The ETCC is a nine-round Swiss, with one open section and one section for the
women’s teams, considered a separate competitions. The time control is
90 min for 40 moves + 30 min for the rest of the game + 30 sec increment for
every move played starting from the first move. A total of 38 countries have
registered their participation in the European Team Championship 2011, with
each national federation affiliated to the European Chess Union (ECU) having
the right to enter one team of four players plus one reserve in the open competition,
and one team of four female players and one reserve in the women’s competition.
The games are being played in the Olympic Hall Congress Center (1500 sq.m.),
within the five-star Porto Carras Grand Resort, which is located in an enchantingly
verdant landscape in Halkidiki, Greece. Also called Chalkidiki the peninsula
is one of the peripheral units of Greece, part of the periphery of Central Macedonia.

Round one report

Round one saw top seed Russia struggle past Moldova with a 2.5-1.5 result when
Moldovian GMs Viktor Bologan and Dmitry Svetushkin let slip a win and a draw
against Peter Svidler and Alexander Morozevich respectively. While Svetushkin
tragically blundered a rook in a drawn ending, his compatriot Bologan made a
strange draw offer in a completely winning game that he had dominated from the
start. Time trouble, it appears, can get to the best of them…

On board two, Ukraine made a clean 3.5-0.5 sweep against Slovenia despite Ivanchuk
being held to a draw by Beliavsky on the top board. Meanwhile Scandinavian countries
opened with an impressive showing after lowly rated Sweden and Finland held
France and Netherlands to draws. Romania, Serbia and Greece all scored 4-0 (against
Wales, Luxembourg and Cypress) and are thus in the lead. But the ranking table
is not really meaningful yet.

The women’s section also saw some well-fought matches. The Russian Kosintseva
sisters Nadezhda and Tatiana led their team to a 3-0 victory over Israel on
board one, while Ukraine beat Greece on board two. Third seed Georgia overcame
Azerbaijan, but not before their leader Lela Javakhishvili fell to Zeinab Mamedjarova,
150 points her inferior.

The Russian women's team, with Gunina Valentina, Tatania and Nadezhda (back
to camera) Kosintseva and Natalija Pogonina receive final instructions from
their trainer, GM Yuri
Dokhoian, who for many years seconded you-know-who.

See also

9/26/2017 – The final classical game. The finals has been relatively sedate with three draws until now. But it could all end today with one decisive game. Ding Liren has the black pieces today. It's going to be an exciting game. Games kick off at 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EST) with live commentary from Tbilisi by GMs Evgeny Miroshnichenko and WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili and live updates by our reporters Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal.

See also

7/5/2017 – This is neither prank nor clever wording: Garry Kasparov will be playing in the official St. Louis leg of the Grand Chess Tour from August 14-19, 2017. Please note that this is the Rapid and Blitz competition, just as the ones held in Paris and Levuen these last weeks, and not the classical events. However, this is not an exhibition event, and will determine the official Grand Chess Tour rankings as well as FIDE ratings of the players. Here is the press release.

Video

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